As streaming prices rise, Hollywood seeks to revive failed anti-piracy law

Dramatically rising streaming prices have lead to an increase in video piracy, and major Hollywood studios are now asking Congress to pass a new law to address it.

The exact same law, in fact, that it tried and failed to get passed in 2012, after major websites went dark in protest …

Steep rises in streaming video prices

A recent report said that the subscription streaming spend of the average American is now close to a thousand dollars a year. That’s not surprising given a flood of major price rises last year.

Apple TV+ was one of the first services to see a price rise, back in October 2022, increasing from $4.99 to $6.99 – a 40% hike.

Disney followed in December, with an increase of 25%, from $7.99 to $10.99 for Disney+ Basic. The price was increased again, to $13.99. That amounts to a total increase of 75% in less than a year!

Hulu pricing was increased at the same time, the ad-free tier rising by 20% from $14.99 to $17.99.

Warner Bros. increased HBO Max pricing from $15 to $16, and Netflix dropped the Netflix Basic tier from its lineup for new or switching subscribers, more than doubling the effective cost. 

Piracy rising in response

For years, video piracy rates fell as streaming availability increased, but that trend started reversing in 2022.

Data shows that accesses to pirated content per internet user per month for all types of content started at about 11.5 in 2017, reached a minimum of about 5 at the beginning of 2021, and increased to 7 at the end of 2022.

Hollywood studios seek to revive failed law

The Verge reports that the Motion Picture Association (MPA) – which represents major studios like Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Disney – is lobbying for Congress to pass a tougher law to tackle the problem.

Specifically, CEO Charles Rivkin wants to be able to force ISPs to block access to pirate sites.

The solution to stopping piracy, at least in Rivkin’s eyes, is to prevent users from accessing piracy websites altogether. “Site-blocking is a targeted, legal tactic to disrupt the connection between digital pirates and their intended audience,” Rivkin says. He adds that the ideal process would allow creatives across the film, TV, music, and book industries to go to court, where they can request that internet service providers block access to websites with pirated content.

As the site notes, the MPA tried this once before, lobbying for the the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2011.

However, free speech objections saw many major websites go dark in protest, and the bill was dropped before it could become law. It’s unclear why anything would be different this time around.

Photo by Meg Boulden on Unsplash